CHICAGO _ In the 15 months since the Rev. Richard McGrath abruptly retired from Providence Catholic High School amid a probe into "potentially inappropriate material" on his phone, the priest was the subject of two criminal investigations, accused in a lawsuit by a former student of sexual abuse and deemed AWOL from his religious order.
Authorities have now closed both investigations without filing any criminal charges against McGrath, who led the New Lenox, Ill., school for three decades until a student reported that she saw what she thought was an image of a naked boy on the priest's phone.
Yet McGrath is still considered "illegitimately absent" from his order, its leaders said, and his current whereabouts are unclear.
New Lenox police said they ended the cellphone investigation after McGrath "steadfastly refused" to turn over the device. In the other criminal probe, involving the sexual abuse claims by a former student, Will County prosecutors said there was "insufficient evidence to bring charges." But a civil case stemming from the same claim is still pending.
And police reports newly filed in that case reveal that after McGrath left Providence Catholic in late 2017, authorities interviewed three other male former students who all said McGrath touched or massaged them on their shoulders or torsos in ways that made them uncomfortable.
The revelation of those claims coincide with the release in March of a study that says nearly 400 Illinois priests have been accused of child sexual misconduct over several decades _ a report that has brought renewed attention to a clergy sex abuse crisis that has scandalized the Roman Catholic Church for years.
McGrath's case also underscores the difficult question of what church leaders and society should do about priests who have claims against them that have not been, or cannot be, substantiated.
Robert Krankvich, the former Providence student who said he was abused by McGrath in the 1990s and is the plaintiff in a sexual abuse lawsuit against the school and the Augustinian order that runs it, told the Chicago Tribune he wishes he had come forward sooner.
"I regret the years that I didn't do anything about it," said Krankvich, who consented to being named. He added that he wonders "how many other people had been affected. It hurts a lot."
Krankvich has said he decided to come forward after reading news reports about McGrath's sudden retirement.
That happened after a Providence student reported that while attending a wrestling match at the school, she saw McGrath sitting alone on the bleachers, approached him to say hello and saw on his phone a photograph that she told police appeared to be a naked teenage boy, shown from neck to knees.
Though she said she "wasn't completely certain if she saw male genitalia" in the photo, the girl told police that when McGrath saw her, he "'freaked out, like when someone saw something that you don't want them to see' and pulled his phone close to his body," according to a police report.
New Lenox police said McGrath's attorney, Patrick Reardon, declined their initial request to discuss the girl's claims with McGrath, and he refused multiple requests to turn over his school-issued cellphone.
"Mr. Reardon indicated that he doesn't believe that (the) cellular phone exists and that it would be huge waste of time looking for the cellular phone," police wrote in a report. "Mr. Reardon explained that he does not think the cell phone will surface or ever turn up."
Providence officials cited the phone investigation when they announced Dec. 22, 2017, that they were "sincerely saddened" to report McGrath was retiring after 32 years as principal and then president of the school.
"This action is in response to an investigation by civil authorities of an allegation of potentially inappropriate material on (McGrath's) mobile device," the school wrote in a message to parents and an online post.
What school officials didn't say in that message is that, around the same time, they apparently had been contacted by a former Providence student and football player who said McGrath "would talk to and stare at the naked boys while they took showers" after games and "would regularly come into the lunchroom and rub the shoulders and pectoral area of the male students," according to police report written after New Lenox authorities interviewed the man in Florida, where he lives.
The man first contacted police about his claims by phone on Dec. 17 and said he also had made contact with a Providence officials "at the same time."
The former student told police, according to the police report, that he was told that the Augustinian order that runs Providence "would pay for any counseling that he wanted" and "was removing Fr. McGrath from the student population due to the nature of his complaint."
